I Would Do Anything
by Lucygoosey
Summary: A short tag to Sateda, oneshot. Ronon and Teyla have a conversation.


Obligatory disclaimer, I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did I'd be writing for money and not for fun. This is a short tag to "Sateda", in which Ronon and Teyla have a conversation and add a little bit more to John Sheppard's background.

SGASGA

_I would do anything… for any one of you. If I had to give up my life the way Ronon was going to… I would._

SGASGA

Elizabeth received Colonel Caldwell's transmission at midday, but she didn't join in the spontaneous cheering and celebration that broke out in the control room. Instead, she calmly withdrew to her office and sat down at her desk before she allowed herself to slump forward in relief, both hands pressed to her mouth to stifle… what? a gasp? a sob?

"Atlantis, this is Daedalus," Caldwell's voice had reverberated throughout the control room and the gateroom. "SGA-1 has retrieved Specialist Ronon Dex, and all team members are safe aboard. We're on our way home. ETA ninety minutes. Caldwell out."

They were safe, they were safe. Elizabeth had been so afraid, knowing John and the others were going up against a Wraith hive intent on hunting down Ronon. Even knowing now that they were coming home unharmed, she waited in her office until the Daedalus docked and she could see with her own eyes that they were safe.

Sheppard and Teyla came down the stairs from the docking transporter, obviously exhausted judging from the shadowed look in their faces. Caldwell followed behind, his usual grim expression lightened somewhat by satisfaction. Elizabeth reflected that Caldwell could well afford to feel satisfied: an Atlantis team member rescued and nearly forty Wraith killed, including the hive leader, all without risking the Daedalus in a hopeless fight. She supposed she couldn't fault him for that.

"John, good to see you, and you, Teyla. Where are the others?"

"Carson called for a medical team to meet us in the docking bay," John said. "He took Ronon to the infirmary, and Rodney went along because…uh…" he glanced at Teyla, who stifled a smile…"Well, Rodney was experiencing some pain in his…uh…"

"I get the picture," Elizabeth said. "Welcome home."

"Thanks. Look, I'm going to go check on Ronon, and then I've got some reports to write. I'll brief you later, if that's okay."

"Certainly. Tell Ronon I'll be there to see him shortly." She turned to Caldwell as John walked away. "So, Stephen. Are you pleased at how it all worked out?"

The commander of the Daedalus allowed a tight grin to escape. "I still think Sheppard was reckless to risk his team --- and the ship --- for one man, but… yes, I'm pleased. Despite what you may think, I'm glad he was able to rescue his team mate without any casualties."

Elizabeth ducked her head. "We don't leave our people behind," she said, reiterating the argument that had been made before.

"Sometimes you have to make a judgment call, Dr. Weir," Caldwell said. "We're lucky this one worked out for us."

She couldn't really argue with that, so she nodded. "Yes, we are."

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I've a ship to see to and reports of my own to make." He nodded to her and walked back up the stairs.

Teyla, as if she had been quietly waiting for the others to leave, now stepped forward and laid her hand gently on Elizabeth's sleeve. "Elizabeth, have you a moment? There are some questions I wish to ask you."

"Of course."

"They concern Colonel Sheppard, and they are… of a personal nature. You do not have to answer them, if you think I am prying, but… the answers will help me to understand him better."

Elizabeth stared at her, and then nodding, gestured toward the door of her office.

SGASGA

Ronon consented to stay overnight in the infirmary only because it was Carson who asked him, and he felt he owed the doctor some consideration. After all, the man had killed the Wraith leader with a drone as Ronon was losing the fight for his life. As he lay on an infirmary bed, nestled in warm blankets and drowsy with painkillers, he silently counted over all the blessings he owed to the people of Atlantis: Carson for tending to him, Teyla for guiding him through the incomprehensible intricacies of life among the Earth people, Dr. Weir for her many kindnesses, John Sheppard for taking him in, in the first place. He felt he could never repay them for any of it, except by staying and doing for them what he did best: killing Wraith.

Carson had removed the tracking device from his back while he was still unconscious in the jumper. Later, after they arrived in the infirmary, the doctor had shot him up with something that put him under before he could protest and had done some more surgical work, cutting away much of the old scar tissue and stretching the skin over the wound, suturing it in place to minimize the new scarring. It throbbed now, but not unbearably. Carson had assured him that the wound would heal quickly, so he need only stay here one night as long as he followed medical instructions and reported for a checkup each day until the stitches could be removed.

The infirmary was quiet, except for gentle snoring in the far corner. Rodney had insisted on staying overnight in the infirmary as well, complaining loudly to Carson that his own wound was now surely infected, so painful was it. Ronon grimaced. It probably _was_ painful, considering where it was located. And it was going to be very inconvenient for someone who spent much of his life sitting down in front of a computer. Ronon suspected Rodney's theatrics had as much to do with not leaving him alone in the infirmary as anything else. And that was another thing he reluctantly added to his list of debts.

He turned the thought over and over in his mind that staying here among these people who treated him as one of their own might be blunting his killer edge. But he found, surprisingly, that he no longer wanted to be alone so much. He was faced with a choice: he could leave, and probably should, after threatening to kill Sheppard; or he could stay and finally become one of them. That wasn't a choice, really. And if he needed to keep those razor-sharp instincts that had kept him alive for so long, then he would hone them in service to these people and not merely for himself. It was a new thought, and it consumed him with unfamiliar emotion.

John and Elizabeth had both visited him earlier. Elizabeth had stayed only briefly, smiling and welcoming him home, assuring him that he must take as much time as necessary to heal. The missions could wait, and at his protest, she reassured him that if Colonel Sheppard's team needed to go out while he was incapacitated, she would send along marines as extra security. Ronon had to be satisfied with that. After all, he had trained many of them himself in hand-to-hand Wraith combat.

Sheppard stayed a little longer.

"I would have killed that guy before he killed you," Sheppard said. "You know that, right?"

"I know."

"You wouldn't… really… have killed me if I'd shot him, though, would you?"

Ronon snorted. "Probably not."

Sheppard smiled his crooked smile. "I thought so." He patted Ronon's shoulder and turned to go.

"Sheppard."

Sheppard turned and raised his eyebrows in an attitude of listening.

Ronon glanced down at his hands, finding it difficult to say what he needed to say. "Thanks. For coming to get me and backing me up."

The crooked grin grew wider. "Don't mention it. Couldn't do without you on the team, big guy. You know… Chewbacca, and all." He threw up his hand in a careless wave and walked away.

It was only later when Teyla came, at last, to see him.

He lay propped to one side on pillows, to keep pressure off the wound in his back. He had been unable to sleep, despite the drugs, because his brain refused to stop examining his place in Atlantis and these people who had turned his life over. Teyla walked up to the bed and placed her hand on his as it rested on the bed rail, taking care not to disturb the IV taped to the back of his hand.

"How are you feeling?" she asked in a soft, quiet voice, so as not to disturb Rodney.

"Fine," Ronon said. She raised a skeptical eyebrow, and he added, "I'll live."

She drew up the stool Carson kept nearby and sat down. "This was a very close call, Ronon. You should not have let us leave you like that."

"I didn't see any other way," he said. "It was my fault that village was culled. It's my fault they're all dead now."

"No, it is not. They made a bad bargain, one they should not have made. The Wraith are to blame, Ronon. Not you."

They were both silent for a while. Teyla could see that Ronon was struggling with something, and at last he spoke:

"Why did Sheppard come after me? I've been thinking it over and trying to understand. I'm nothing to these people, they don't owe me anything. They do kind things for me, and I repay them by fighting for them, but they could just as easily have let me go."

Teyla shrugged. "Colonel Sheppard has said it many times. They do not leave their people behind. It is not their way. And for whatever reason, I have seen now that they consider us their own. So we need not fear that they would abandon us." She hesitated. "There is something else, too."

"What?"

"Colonel Sheppard---" she stopped, trying to decide if what she was about to reveal was giving away a confidence. It was very difficult for him to say what he had said to her, she knew, and perhaps he wouldn't want it revealed to everyone. On the other hand, perhaps they needed to know --- at least Ronon needed to know --- the significance they all had in John Sheppard's world. It was a responsibility that they should understand, and be given the choice to live up to it or not, as they chose.

"John… told me that he would never leave you behind because you… me, all of us… are his family. Like you and me, he has no family of his own. The difference is that our families were taken from us by the Wraith, and he has never had one."

Ronon frowned. "Never?"

"I asked Elizabeth about this. Apparently it is in his file. He was… thrown away… as a child, and all during his childhood he was passed from home to home. On his world… perhaps it is because there are so many of them, billions, that they do not value children as we do, they do not simply take them in. Instead, there are certain people who are paid to do it. I do not understand it in people so loyal to each other as these are, but there is much about them I do not understand." She looked into Ronon's eyes, and her own glimmered with unshed tears. "But this, I do understand. He told me he would give his life for us, just as you would have. And I believe him."

Ronon looked down at her hand on his. "So do I," he said after a while.

"He does not pity himself, nor should you or I. We must honor his trust and faith in us. So you are not allowed to blame yourself for what happened to the villagers. It just happened, as it does in our world. Colonel Sheppard… John… and his people need us. We must stand back to back with our friends and fight our enemies, so that such a thing will never happen again. You understand?"

He nodded. They sat holding hands in silence for a while, until a small sound attracted their attention and they both turned to find Rodney McKay lying on his side, staring at them.

"Don't tell him," he whispered to them before he closed his eyes, and they understood perfectly what he meant.


End file.
